Would love to know your thoughts on my column today in the Savannah Morning News Accent section. The subject: to spank or not to spank? You can read it here.

The column prompted several emails from anti-spanking advocates, including the folks @ the Center for Effective Discipline, which subscribes to the belief “Spare the child, lose the rod.” They pointed me to a Q&A for parents with experts answering parents’ questions about discipline. Read it by clicking here. Their Web site also offers a theory on the origin of Biblical quote “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Read it here.

Check out an extremely detailed debate about spanking between parenting expert John Rosemond, pro-spanking, and the Center for Effective Discipline, anti-spanking. Click here to read it.

How’s your child’s day-care?

State inspectors have issued more than 800 citations for violations at 85 licensed day care learning centers in Chatham County since June 2007, according to this article in today’s Savannah Morning News.

The good news is there were also seven local day cares that received NO violations during the same period.

Here are the day cares with serious problems, according to the article:

CHILDCARE NETWORK NO. 20, 12441 WHITE BLUFF ROAD

ANGEL’S CHILDCARE & ENRICHMENT CENTER II, 409 E. 39TH ST.

DUTCHTOWN CHILDREN’S CENTER, 911 DUTCHTOWN ROAD

THE STARTING POINT DAY CARE, 1929 SKIDAWAY ROAD

ELF’S CHILDREN CENTER, 4802 KIM ST.

Centers not cited include the following:

ABC Child Care Center #1, 1106 E. 48th St.

Kicklighter Academy, 7219 Seawright Drive

Sanctuary Child Learning And Development Center, 8912 Whitfield Ave.

The Lady Bamford Early Childhood Education Center, 1410 Richards St.

Wesley Community Centers CC, 1601 Drayton St.

Savannah Morning News also put together a database of state violations issued to Chatham County child care learning centers. To see if your child’s day-care received state violations, click here.

Remember all the fuss about whether “The Baby Borrowers” was more about child neglect than birth control?

Now NBC News plans to host a one-hour televised town hall meeting at 9 pm this Wednesday (Aug. 6) about the series and the controversy raised.

The NBC reality show came under scrutiny from critics including the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry because the show temporarily separated babies and toddlers from their parents and placed them with young strangers as part of a “social experiment.” “A child’s sense of security should not be gambled with,” said Robert Hendren, the president of the academy.

The series, which ended in July, followed five teenage couples who experienced life in fast-forward, taking care of babies, toddlers, teenagers and elderly people over a three-week period.

Critics will be included in Wednesday’s town hall special along with experts in adolescent psychology and teenage pregnancy. The teenage couples and the actual parents of the children will also be in attendance. Hosts of the town hall meeting are Hoda Kotb and Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Tossing out all your baby bottles that contained BPA and replacing them with BPA-free bottles?

If those bad bottles came from Babies R Us, the chain store is making it easy to dump them. Babies R Us reportedly has a generous return policy when it comes to allowing concerned parents to exchange the hard, plastic bottles that contain bisphenol-A for ones that are BPA-free.

Bisphenol-A, which is added to polycarbonate plastic, has come under scrutiny in recent months after studies linked it to potential health problems in animals and humans. A draft report issued by the National Toxicology Program in April found BPA could cause “neural and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children” and may be linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer and early puberty in girls.”

Babies R U saw sales of glass baby bottles and BPA-free bottles jump in 2007 and will phase out baby products containing BPA by the end of the year. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, and Toys R Us, the largest toy seller, have said that by January their shelves will be free of children’s products containing BPA.

The bottle exchange reportedly various from store to store. So call ahead to find a store that honors the BPA-free return policy.

Read more about the BPA-free bottle exchange here. For a list of BPA-free bottles and sippy cups, click here.

Do you secretly mock mommy-and-me-style music classes? Moms who scrapbook? Or hipster parents who are just too cool?

Do you suspect that moms who say their kids watch absolutely NO TV are, indeed, lying?

Then you might enjoy the latest mommy lit offering by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor: Naptime is the New Happy Hour: and Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Life Upside Down.

Wilder-Taylor, whose first book was Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, takes on the trend of moms who do everything they can- including lie – to appear to be superparents in the eyes of others.

Wilder-Taylor, mother of three, shares her irreverent take on parenting, including making fun of parents like me who made our own baby food and schlep our kids to Kindermusik. Hmmm. This read might hurt a little. But if you can’t laugh at yourself…

At least, the book makes a good gift for that first-time mom who feels overwhelmed by the new world of pseudo superparents she just entered. And serves as a painful mirror for the rest of us.

Pass the chardonnay, please.